If I Could Wait For A Moment...
by BGlanders
Summary: An Aeka Story


"We can do no great things- only small things with great love."  
  
-Mother Teresa  
  
  
  
***  
  
BGlanders presents…  
  
If I Could Wait For A Moment/Would That You Were Here  
  
***  
  
It's been three hours, twenty-seven minutes and twelve seconds since you said you were heading out to the fields to do your daily work. Every morning you get up, wash your face, greet us all with a friendly hello, have your breakfast and then leave us with a smile and a promise of your return. Every morning you follow this set routine, and every morning we answer you in kind. We greet you, ask you how you are feeling, inquire as to your activities for the day, eat a good breakfast, lightly bicker and then wave goodbye as you head off to your chores. Every day we follow this simple, predictable pattern, and every day you answer us in kind.  
  
This is what I always wanted, you know. I always wanted to have a man in my life that I could count on, a man that I could depend upon. I always wanted to greet someone in the morning and ask how he slept, to share my breakfast with them and to wave goodbye as they left to officiate over their duties. I wanted to be able to go through my day with the knowledge that the person I had waved goodbye to would always come back to me when the day is done, and that his day would then revolve around mine.  
  
As a princess, I was taught that while my duties would be very important and while I would constantly be occupied, I would have to let my husband go about his official business. Mother and Lady Funaho have instilled this within me since I was a little girl, and I have grown up believing that this was the way it would always be. I remember playing pretend with my chambermaids and dressing up in mother's official robes (which the chambermaids always smoothed out and re-hung afterwards.) I remember playing Castle with Yosho… well, on the few times I could get him to… and how I would be mother and he would pretend to be father. He would make his voice real low and act all gruff, and I remember his expression was so incredibly serious! I would always start to laugh whenever he would impersonate father, and the chambermaids would always join in. Father was a kind and loving man, but bless him he was always too gruff for his own good.  
  
Playing with Yosho… I always hoped that he would realize why I would ask him to play Castle with me. I hoped that he would start to see that I could be just as good of a ruler as mother was, and that I would love him just as much as mother loved father. I would pretend we were married, and at the time I had wanted for nothing else in the universe.  
  
Now granted, things change over time. Yosho went far away and found someone else to wake up to in the morning and wave goodbye to, and I merely waited for him back on Jurai. He never bothered to tell any of us goodbye that day… that day Ryoko attacked. He simply left us with a fire blazing in his eyes and a scream of revenge on his lips. For seven hundred years I kept that vision in my soul, and to be honest when I found out that he had taken another as his wife and that Tenchi was his grandson … well I was distressed at first, but in retrospect I was relieved.  
  
Don't ask me why I say this now. At the time I screamed and cried, I begged for him to tell me why he had abandoned me. I wanted to know why I wasn't worth coming home to. Why couldn't he have contacted me? Why couldn't he have visited? Just one little explanation and I would have agreed! I may not have understood his reasons, but I would have gone along with them because… because it would have been what he wanted. In my mind, there was a set way, an inevitable destiny that we were to follow… But you can only pretend to play Castle for so long before it's time to put your toys away…  
  
Oh! Sasami just startled me. I've been sitting here by the window sill folding laundry and watching the path to the fields so intently that my mind began to wander, so I didn't hear her come up behind me. She giggled and apologized, and then told me that lunch would be ready soon. I thanked her, tussled her hair and then sent her on her way.  
  
My, she's gotten so big! And those eyes! She's getting to be so beautiful as of late. Her eyes are starting to give away a hint of restlessness… and her hair! It's gotten so long and blue, even more so than before. Before long she'll be a beautiful young woman and before long after that…  
  
While I may not be her mother, I'm still her older sister and I do worry, far more than an older sister probably should. Why, last week Ryoko and I were in the onsen having our… after dinner refreshment, and we got to talking about what kind of man Sasami might fall for later on in life. Don't ask me how the subject came up! We were just…um… a little verbally uninhibited at the time. We each tried to come up with the most frightening, most decidedly awful choice Sasami could make, and then tried our best to imagine it.  
  
The worst I could come up with was Sasami falling in love with some white- haired, grizzled old Jurian combat veteran. I know it's not very imaginative but it's what I feared would happen to me when I was her age. While Ryoko did laugh at my idea, I have to admit some of her ideas were far more imaginative, if not altogether horrifying. While I won't list everything she came up with, some of her more colorful ideas involved that nice little black-haired sickly girl who lives down the street. What was her name? Mi…Misa…Misato? Ohh, I suppose it's not important. The point was that soon Sasami will be an adult, and that we won't be able to stop her from making a bad decision that could end up hurting her.  
  
I know Ryoko cares about her just as much as I do, and I know Sasami looks up to Ryoko as a….a… a role-model. While at first this frightened me to no end I soon realized that like me, Ryoko only wants what's absolutely best for Sasami and deep down would never do anything that might hurt her. She loves her more than anything (well, short of sake' and a certain clueless Prince), but in the end we can only do so much, and eventually Sasami will be faced with so many choices and issues and problems and…  
  
No. No, no, no. I'm not going to think about that at the moment. For now she's my little sister and I refuse to think of the millions of things that could happen once she goes out into the world on her own. For now I'm content to tussle her hair and give her hugs just because and share cookies with her before dinner and have pajama parties with her and the others… even Ryoko. Hmmm… now if we could actually get her to wear her pajamas…  
  
Hmm… it's almost lunchtime and you're not back yet. I know you will be though; that's one thing you've shown me over the last year, Tenchi. Through all the adventures and excitement we've shared, and through all of the dangers, you've never once broken your word to any of us. Mother always said to be wary of rulers; she said that if they would lie to their people and to their allies then they would always lie to you as well… but you though, you aren't like that. You're… honest. An honest and simple man with a gentle heart, this is what you have show me, Tenchi Masaki. You're smart, but you're also wise. You're fair and just and even stern when he needs to be (lord knows you've come down on me and Ryoko more than once for our foolishness), and you've always treated us as nothing but equals. As friends.  
  
…  
  
In three minutes you'll round the bend at the edge of the small tree line that separates the fields from the house, gardening equipment in hand and a smile on your face. Your clothes will be dirty, and you'll insist upon cleaning them yourself… until we convince you that we really don't mind and take them from you anyway. Then you'll head upstairs, wash up, come back down and join us for lunch. You'll come back to us…to me… to everyone.  
  
Even if we were ripped away from each other against our wills, and even if the chances for your survival were next to none, you would still travel a thousand, million miles, even beyond where the sky meets the sea to find us again. I know this because you say you will every morning, and even if it is a formality, I know that somewhere deep inside you that conscience of yours won't let you go back on your word. You'll come back to your friends, to your family, just like you always have. I know that you'll come back to those who love you because we do indeed love you, and because you love us too.  
  
I'm not going to lament about my undying love for you, or how we should be together forever. I'm not going to weep with bitter, love worn tears and confess to you my most heartfelt desires, telling you how with my love always there to guide us, we could shake the pillars of heaven. I'm not going to get all flustered when Ryoko wraps herself around you when you come in, or at you when you subtly flirt back. I'm not going to get testy when you flash your warm smile to Mihoshi or to Washu, and I am not going to take it as a stab in the back if you treat me with no more warmth and love than you do anyone else today. Despite what people may think, I am actually above acting like a four-year-old. Besides, that kind of thinking is for little children who still play make-believe games…  
  
If anything my time here on Earth has taught me to not be so selfish of you, and in general I suppose. Getting angry over jealousies… my, I suppose I used to do that quite often, but thankfully my time here has strengthened my resolve. Now granted that doesn't mean I'm just fine and dandy with Ryoko throwing herself at you… the tramp…No, no I am better than that, and besides she does it mostly to get a rise out of me. That woman… she's lucky that she's my best friend or I'd really let her have it!  
  
As much as I've gotten out of my time on Earth, I know it has done wonders for Sasami. My little sister is learning so much more here than she ever would have on Jurai! I know mother and Lady Funaho have done their best with us, and as far as I'm concerned they did a wonderful job. However, there are some lessons one has to learn away from home, and I think that after all this time I'm beginning to pick up on them. I'm not going to say what they are, though. If you ask me, I'll just smile and tell you that they're a secret. After all, if I had to learn them then I think you should too. I suppose it's a good thing Sasami has always been clever when secrets were concerned. She's going to be a handful I'm sure of it, but we've already talked about this, haven't we? Still, I wouldn't have it any other way.  
  
Any second now you'll be home, and then our daily routine will start again, just like it always has and hopefully, just like it always will. I know you'll always come back to us Tenchi… and that you'll always come back to me. It's who you are, who you were raised to be.  
  
For now I'm not worried about what the future may hold, or about any great decisions that may have to be made. For now I'm content to wait for your smile, and to know that even if you don't feel the same way about me that I do for you, you still care for me. I know that you'll keep your promises, and right now that's the single most important thing you can do for me.  
  
In the mean time I'll be right here, waiting for you.  
  
"Welcome home, Lord Tenchi."  
  
***  
  
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